Railway Days at HP

Today was the classic railway days at Heritage Park. We got the three fams out today, and took some family photos. I had to head out at noon, unfortunately, so we were a bit rushed. I am writing this from Hawaii, where I am working this week...

Here are four of the boys watching the train on the turntable: Darcy and her boys:

Autumn Bike Ride

We almost missed the fall colours this year, but Ryan and I took the boys for a ride around the Glenmore reservoir today. It takes under two hours, but we stopped at the river to throw some rocks in and enjoy the sunny day. It was a little on the cold side this morning, but soon warmed up:

Allison's Birthday

For the first time in years, I didn't have to go the annual ASIS show for work, so I was home for Allie's birthday. We gave her 16 candles on the cake:

Here am I dancing with my nephew:
Opening presents:
Carrying a purse, as usual:

Sam makes his bed!

After his nap today Sam came down the stairs and announced:

"Daddy, I made my bed. I pulled the cover up on the pillow. Then I put my bear and my puppy on top..."

It was soooo cute.

Camping with the 'boys'

Ryan, Matta and I took the older boys camping this weekend at the Bow Valley campground. It is a nice 50 minutes drive to the campsite from Calgary. We left mid morning after squeezing the six of us plus Lucy into the Mazda 5. The roof rack was packed, as was the back of the car. Lucy made the trip on my lap, after deciding that the floor didn't have enough comfort for her.

Once we had setup tents we basically played with the kids, ate some sandwiches and headed for dinner. Dinner was a real camping dinner - Kraft Dinner with Sausages. We finished it off with a delicious pie, then roasted marshmallows on the fire before bed. Sam was the only one who napped in the afternoon, and Andrew (and Ryan) dropped off first. Matt, Rogan, Sam and I stayed up until about 10, and then put out the fire and went to bed. The boys had played pretty hard all day, and ended it with an hour of running around with glowsticks so it wasn't much work to get them to bed.

This morning we woke up around 7:30 and I made up some French Toast and Sausages. It was pretty cold, and halfway through breakfast it started to rain. By the time we were half packed up it was really raining so the kids waited in the car. We fled the campsite and were home by 10:30. It was a good trip, especially yesterday with some excellent weather. The boys had a good time. Sammy told me last night "I had fun camping with you, Daddy...".

And....it's in!

Today was pretty exciting for Sam. We went to the park near the house and brought a ball with us. We threw it back and forth, and he threw it up at the basketball net a couple of times, hitting the backboard once. I said he could have one more throw, so he moved around to the top of the key, and said "I'm going to get it in the net!" He threw it, it hit the backboard and into the hoop!

He was pretty excited and wanted to run straight home to tell Mom. He also phoned Grandpa Ian and Grandma Maureen...
Happy guy:

Good thinking guys!

Andrew started off a cool game last night. They take the tape measure and extend it from the top of the stairwell to the bottom. The tape measure is then locked in place. Then one by one, or in a bunch some little cubes from Grandpa Trevor ('ice cubes' as Sam calls them) are sent down the chute. The tape measure has a nice curl to it, so the cubes stay centered and zip down the line. Sam and Rogan continued on today:


Waiting for another run:
Watching them zip!
Sam and Andrew eating ice cream after dinner tonight:

Might as well JUMP!

There is my boy - sailing through the air off the landing, heading to a nice cushy pillow below!

Having fun around the house...

Sam's first day at pre-school went just fine. He was only there for an hour, but still it went well. Here are the boys playing together tonight. Max just loves to wrestle Sam, and is already giving Sam a run for his money...

Sam eating French Toast this morning:
Max at breakfast. I don't know why but these little fellas are getting up pretty darn early these days!

Sam's on his own!

I was a little nervous for a few minutes, but Sam (and Andrew) did just fine at their first UNPARENTED swimming lesson. No life jackets, either, in a pool they can't touch in! We took them to the Y and once they met their teacher we were pretty much kicked out to the parent viewing area. We watched through the window as they sat on the edge, jumped in, hung on the wall, and kicked in the water. Sam slipped off the wall once and bobbed back up, grabbing the wall and no worse for wear.

It was a pretty big step for both of us, and he took in all in stride. Tomorrow is his first hour in pre-school, so he is growing up!

Camping in Bow Valley

We met up with Claire, Eric and Molly today in Kananaskis. The kids sure were cute! We also had Lily and Rogan so it was quite a brood. They were all asleep half way back to Calgary so we had an easy time putting them to bed (Ali and Matt were at a golf tournament today):

Cute guys

Both Sam and Max put on the happy faces for me this morning. Sam was doing funny faces for me, so Max followed suit. He loves to copy his big brother!

Sam is getting to the point where he does purposeful stuff with the Lego. He came upstairs and wanted Max to come down and see the Cruise Ship he built for him!
Max looking very sophisticated:
Having fun with Mommy: